[M]y
vegetarianism is a great protest. And I dream that
there may be a whole religion based on protest …
against everything which is not just: about the fact
that there is so much sickness, so much death, so
much cruelty. My vegetarianism is my religion, and
it's part of my protest against the conduct of the
world.Isaac
Bashevis Singer

I did not
become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the
health of the chickens. Isaac
Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902 -1991) was a Jewish
American Author. Most famous for his short stories and among the
most powerful of pro-animal voices of the
twentieth century Isaac Singer was
born in Leoncin a village near Warsaw, Poland. In 1935 as a
result of the growing Nazi threat in neighbouring
Germany, Singer left Poland and
followed his elder brother Joshua to the
USA.

He was
parted from his common law wife Runia
Pontsch and son Israel Zamir who instead went to
Moscow and then Palestine, they would not meet
again until 1955. Sadly his
mother, younger brother, and many members of his
extended family who remained in Poland were
killed.
In New York where Singer made his home he worked
as a Journalist for the a Yiddish-language
newspaper. In 1938, he met Alma Wassermann
a German-Jewish refugee from Munich whom he
married in 1940. After which time and after some
initial despondence Singer became a prolific
writer and one of the leading figures in the
Yiddish literary movement; he received the
Nobel Prize in literature in 1978.

In a
Newsweek interview, 16 October 1978, after winning
the Nobel Prize in literature Singer Said:

The same
questions are bothering me today as they did fifty
years ago. Why is one born? Why does one suffer? In
my case, the suffering of animals also makes me very
sad. I'm a vegetarian, you know. When I see how
little attention people pay to animals, and how
easily they make peace with man being allowed to do
with animals whatever he wants because he keeps a
knife or a gun, it gives me a feeling of misery and
sometimes anger with the Almighty. I say "Do you
need your glory to be connected with so much
suffering of creatures without glory, just innocent
creatures who would like to pass a few year's in
peace?" I feel that animals are as bewildered as we
are except that they have no words for it. I would
say that all life is asking: "What am I doing here?"

Singer
wrote and published in Yiddish and then edited
his novels and stories for their American
versions, which than became the basis for all other
translations; he referred to the English version
as his "second original" His writing
accomplishments include
at least 18 novels, 14 children's books, however
Many of his stories and novels remain
unpublished. He also wrote a
number of memoirs, essays and articles. His
short stories appeared in over a dozen
collections. His novels include Enemies, a
Love Story, which is set 1949 New York and
follows the life of Holocaust survivor Herman Broder in which the famous quote appears.

As
often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter
of animals and fish, he always had the same
thought: in their behaviour toward
creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness
with which man could do with other species
as he pleased exemplified the most extreme
racist theories, the principle that might is
right.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Enemies, a Love Story

Most of
Singers' later novels and stories set in America are
about survivors of the holocaust and it was a
perspective from which he often viewed the world,
most particularly concerning the exploitation and
slaughter of animals which greatly distressed him.
He used some of his stories and novels as a platform
to expresses his opinion concerning the exploitive
and abusive treatment of animals. Singer often employs first-person narrators
in his fiction that are clearly meant to
represent him personally as in the above
quotation.

His
profound sensitivities to suffering including the
suffering of animals is expressed in his
autobiographical book, Lost in
America:

There reposed within me an ascetic who
reminded me constantly of death and that
other's suffered in hospitals, in prisons,
or were tortured by various political
sadists. Only a few years ago millions of
Russian peasants starved to death just
because Stalin decided to establish
collectives. I could never forget the
cruelties perpetrated upon God's creatures
in slaughterhouses, on hunts, and in various
scientific laboratories.

Singer's writings have had a great influence
by highlighting the plight of animals and
human mistreatment of them.

For the
last thirty-five years of his life Singer was a
prominent Vegetarian, he often included such themes
in his writings. For example in his short story The
slaughterer wherein he describes the anguish
that a slaughterer had trying to reconcile his
compassion for animals with his job of slaughtering
them.

In this
extract from his short story Singer tells how the
killing of animals effects one man - the Slaughter.
In this except the slaughterer Yoineh Meir haunted
with misgivings takes a stroll in the night

Since
Yoineh Meir had begun to slaughter, his thoughts
were obsessed with living creatures. He grappled
with all sorts of questions. Where did flies come
from? Were they born out of their mother's womb or
did they hatch from eggs? If all the flies died in
winter, where in the new ones come from in the
summer? And the owl that nested under the synagogue
roof - what did it do when the frost came? Did it
remain there? Did it fly away to warm countries? How
could anything live in the burning frost, when it
was scarcely possible to keep warm under the quilt?

An
unfamiliar love welled up in Yoineh Meir for all
that crawls and flies, breeds and swarms. Even the
mouse - was it their fault that they were mice? What
wrong does a mouse do? All it wants is a crumb of
bread, a bit of cheese. Then why is the cat such an
enemy to it?

Yoineh
Meir rocked back and forth in the dark. The rabbi
may be right. Man cannot and must not have more
compassion than the Master of the universe. Yet he,
Yoineh Meir, was sick with pity. How could one pray
for life for the coming year, or for a favourable
writ in Heaven, when one was for robbing others of
the breath of life?

Yoineh
Meir thought that the Messiah Himself could not
redeem the world as long as injustice was done to
beasts. By rights everything should rise from the
dead: every calf, fish, gnat, butterfly. Even in the
worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine
spark. When you slaughter a creature you slaughter
God...

Quoted
in the The vegetarian Magazine article, The
Compassionate writer by Duba Descowitz

The
above is an insightful article into the compassion
of Isaac Bashevis Singer regarding animals

Singer
considered that the eating of meat was a denial of
all ideals and all religions. "How
can we speak of right and justice if we take an
innocent creature and shed its blood? How can we
pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy?

Concerning vegetarianism Isaac Singer wrote:
Vegetarianism is my religion. I became a consistent
vegetarian some twenty-three years ago. Before that,
I would try over and over again. But it was
sporadic. Finally, in the mid-1960s, I made up my
mind. And I've been a vegetarian ever since.

When a human kills an animal for food, he is
neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for
mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why
should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair
to expect something that you are not willing to
give. It is inconsistent.

I can
never accept inconsistency or injustice. Even if it
comes from God. If there would come a voice from God
saying, "I'm against vegetarianism!" I would say,
"Well, I am for it!" This is how strongly I feel in
this regard.

In
orthodox religious circles, this would be considered
heretical. Still, I consider myself a religious man.
I'm not against organized religion, but I don't take
part in it. Especially when they interpret their
religious books as being in favor of meat-eating.
Sometimes they say He wants sacrifice and the
killing of animals. If this is true, then I would
never be able to comply. But I think God is wiser
and more merciful than that. And there are
interpretations of religious scriptures which
support this, saying that vegetarianism is a very
high ideal.

Whether the mass of people accept the vegetarian
interpretation of religion or not really doesn't
matter. At least not in my life. I accept it
implicitly. Of course, it would be wonderful if the
world adopted vegetarianism, on religious grounds or
any other. But this is not likely. I am a skeptic,
it's true, but I'm also realistic. In any event,
what the people in general do will not affect me. I
will continue to be a vegetarian even if the whole
world started to eat meat.

The
Preface Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote to Steven
Rosen's "Food for Spirit: Vegetarianism and the
World Religions

Singer was among several writers who became
vegetarian after making a comparison between the
atrociously cruel way animals are treated in factory
farms, eventually ending their lives in slaughter
houses, and the Holocaust. He described this as an
eternal Treblinka and made this comparison in
several of his stories.

In the
Letter Writer the protagonist says that in relation
to animals all men are Nazis :

In his
thoughts, Herman spoke a eulogy for the mouse who
had shared a portion of her life with him and who,
because of him, had left this earth. "What do they
know--all these scholars, all these philosophers,
all the leaders of the world--about such as you?
They have convinced themselves that man, the worst
transgressor
of all the species, is the crown of creation. All
other creatures were created merely to provide him
with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In
relation to
them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an
eternal Treblinka.

Also in Enemies, A Love Story :

In
The Penitent, the protagonist says
"when it comes to animals, every man is
a Nazi."

Many animal rights advocates have
continued to make the comparison.

In 2001
Charles Patterson's book the The Eternal
Treblinka our treatment of Animals and
the Holocaust was published.

Review:

This book explores the similar attitudes
and methods behind modern society's
treatment of animals and the way humans
have often treated each other, most
notably during the Holocaust. The book's
epigraph and title are from "The Letter
Writer," a story by the Yiddish writer
and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis
Singer: "In relation to them, all people
are Nazis; for the animals it is an
eternal Treblinka."

The Foreword is by Lucy Rosen Kaplan,
former attorney for People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and
daughter of Holocaust survivors. Her
foreword, the Preface and Afterword,
excerpts from the book, chapter
synopses, and an international list of
supporters can be found on the book's
website at:

Singer was born in the small Polish village
of Leoncin where his father was a Hasidic
rabbi. Although he only lived there until
the age of three, Singer remembered that
their house had very little furniture, but
many books. He also remembered the animals.
"Every week there was a market, and many
peasants would come to the town bringing
livestock. Once I saw a peasant beating a
pig. Maybe it had
been squealing. I ran in to my mother to
tell her the pig was crying
and the man was beating it with a stick. I
remember this very
vividly. Even then I was thinking like a
vegetarian."

After the family moved to Warsaw where his
father served as a
rabbi in a poor Jewish neighborhood, Singer
took to catching flies
and removing their wings. He would then
place the wingless fly in a
match box with a drop of water and a grain
of sugar for nourishment.
He did this until he finally realized he was
committing "terriblecrimes against those creatures just because
I was bigger than they,
stronger, and defter." This realization
bothered him so much that
for a long time he thought about little
else. After he prayed for
forgiveness and took "a holy oath never
again to catch flies," his
thinking about the suffering of flies
"expanded to include all
people, all animals, all lands, all times."

His experience catching flies appears in his
autobiographical
novel, Shosha, which is set in Warsaw. When
the narrator and Shosha
pass the street where they both grew up,
Shosha tells him, "You
stood on the balcony and caught flies." The
narrator tells her not
to remind him. When Shosha asks him why not,
he tells her what
becomes a constant refrain throughout
Singer's writings: "Because we
do to God's creatures what the Nazis did to
us."

In
The Certificate, another autobiographical
novel set in
Warsaw, the young narrator stops in front of
a sausage shop and stares at the sausages hanging in the
window. He addresses them
silently: "You were once alive, you
suffered, but you're beyond yoursorrows now. There's no trace of your
writhing or suffering
anywhere. Is there a memorial tablet
somewhere in the cosmos on
which it is written that a cow named
Kvyatule allowed herself to be
milked for eleven years? Then in the twelfth
year, when her udder
had shrunk, she was led to a slaughterhouse,
where a blessing wasrecited over her and her throat was cut.

At
the end of Singer's posthumously published
novel, Shadows on
the Hudson, the main character writes a
letter from Israel in which
he associates hunting with the seeds of
fascism. "As long as the
other nations continue going to church in
the morning and hunting in
the afternoon, they will remain unbridled
beasts and will go on
producing Hitlers and other monstrosities." Singer says he was
astonished to read about "highly sensitive
poets, preachers of
morality, humanists, and do-gooders of all
kinds who found pleasure
in hunting--chasing after some poor, weak
hare or fox and teachingdogs to do likewise." He was also dismayed
by people who said they
wanted to go fishing when they retire,
believing that fishing was a
harmless pursuit that will launch a new
period of peace and
tranquility in their lives. "It never occurs
to them for a moment
that innocent beings will suffer and die
from this innocent littlesport.

Even in the worm that crawls in the earth
there glows a divine spark. When you
slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.

As
often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter
of animals and fish, he always had the same
thought: in their behaviour toward
creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness
with which man could do with other species
as he pleased exemplified the most extreme
racist theories, the principle that might is
right. Isaac Bashevis Singer, Enemies, a Love Story

People
often say that humans have always eaten animals, as
if this is a justification for continuing the
practice. According to this logic, we should not try
to prevent people from murdering other people, since
this has also been done since the earliest of times.

Even
though the number of people who commit suicide is
quite small, there are few people who have never
thought about suicide at one time or another. The
same is true about vegetarianism We find very few
people who have never thought that killing animals
is actually murder, founded on the premise that
might is right . . . I will call it the eternal
question: What gives man the right to kill an animal
often torture it, so that he can fill his belly with
its flesh. We know now, as we have always known
instinctively, that animals can suffer as much as
human beings. their emotions and their sensitivity
are often stronger than those of a human being.
Various philosophers and religious leaders tried to
convince their disciples and followers that animals
are nothing more than machines without a soul,
without feelings. However, anyone who has ever lived
with an animal be it a dog, a bird or even a mouse -
knows that this theory is a brazen lie, invented to
justify cruelty.

...as long
as human beings will go on shedding the blood of
animals, there will never be any peace. There is
ouly one little step from killing animals to
creating gas chambers a la Hitler and concentration
camps a la Stalin . . . all such deeds are done in
the name of 'social justice'. There will be no
justice as long as man will stand with a knife or
with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he
is.
Extracts from Singer's foreword to 'Vegetarianism, a
Way of Life, by Dudley Giehl'

In his
thoughts, Herman spoke a eulogy for the mouse who
had shared a portion of her life with him and who,
because of him, had left this earth. "What do they
know--all these scholars, all these philosophers,
all the leaders of the world--about such as you?
They have convinced themselves that man, the worst
transgressor
of all the species, is the crown of creation. All
other creatures were created merely to provide him
with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In
relation to
them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an
eternal Treblinka.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, "The Letter Writer"

To be a
vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the
course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we
must make a statement against these things.
Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a
strong one.

There will
be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife
or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than
he is.

How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves
have no mercy?

As long as people will shed the blood of innocent
creatures, there can be no peace, noliberty, no
harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot
dwell together.

If there would come a voice from God saying, 'I'm
against vegetarianism!' I would say, 'Well, I am for
it!' This is how strongly I feel in this regard.

I
am not an animal expert of any kind just your
average person who loves animals, all animals, and
feels deeply about the plight of many of our fellow
creatures. Neither am I a writer, or any other
expert. Therefore please keep in mind that the
information included in this website has been
researched to the best of my ability and any
misinformation is quite by accident but of course
possible.